


(hi)stories on skin

by gingerpolyglot



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Healing, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-03
Updated: 2016-03-03
Packaged: 2018-05-24 11:04:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6151592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingerpolyglot/pseuds/gingerpolyglot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He learns to navigate the past etched in her skin like he uses the constellations to guide his ship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(hi)stories on skin

**Author's Note:**

> Set vaguely in S4. References to sex, but nothing explicit. Warning: brief references past child abuse and general unpleasantness.

 

The first time she sees him naked, Killian has a moment of uncharacteristic self-consciousness. He has many scars from his many years as a cabin boy, sailor, and pirate. His skin is not always the prettiest sight, and his stump, well, that's a whole other level of unsettling. But Emma doesn't hesitate in running her fingers down his back or over his shoulders, pausing only briefly when they reach the brace on his left arm. She gives him a soft look, softer perhaps than he's ever seen her give anyone save her boy, and with utmost care and nimble fingers she removes the leather contraption and rests it on the nightstand. 

He averts his eyes and flinches a bit when he feels the lightest press of her lips on the uneven line that runs jagged across his wrist. She rests her palm on his cheek and gives him a look that quite clearly communicates everything she's too scared to say out loud, and he can only marvel at her. Then she leans down to kiss him, and if he expected anything along the lines of slow and sweet from his Swan then he was sorely mistaken. They get caught up in passion and his moment of uncertainty is forgotten in their enthusiasm. 

She caresses all of his souvenirs from sword fights, kisses the line on his cheek when he tells her the story of how Liam nicked him in sparring practice and felt so guilty he'd given him Captain's rations for a week. She never shies away from his stump, doesn't react when he skims it down her side. He notices she flinches when he grazes her own scars and resolves to uncover the stories behind them, to accept her history the way she's accepted his.

He learns to navigate the past etched in her skin like he uses the constellations to guide his ship. He works his way up her body from her ankles, pausing to kiss the mark on her calf from when she cut herself on her own high heels chasing a skip through Boston. He runs his fingers over the tiny scratch above her left knee leftover from a childhood tumble, brushes his lips over the faint stretch marks on her lower stomach, her daily reminder of Henry for years before she knew his name. He avoids the crescent on her right bicep, the result of her only encounter with a prison shank. He makes sure to kiss the cigarette burn on her shoulder, tries to keep his fury off his face when he thinks about anyone harming a child like that (he'd held her close, jaw clenched tight with anger, as she told him in a shaking voice about the foster father when she was twelve who believed children should be neither seen nor heard, and the consequences of violating that belief). 

She tells him the stories in spurts - a casual remark here, a brief explanation there. He treasures each piece of her past, honored and humbled by her trust in him. Slowly they come more readily, include more detail. He is the storyteller, the word-smith. When she speaks of her beginnings she doesn't use embellishment or flowery language but she conveys a whirl of emotion nonetheless. He reads her pain in the hitch in her voice, her nostalgia in the small wistful quirk of her lips. She lowers her walls for him, and he softens his armor for her.

She smiles as his fingers dance over her right palm, a faint skinny line the only physical reminder of a beanstalk and wasted rum and the beginning of something - dare he say it - magical.


End file.
